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Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

Today's topic is actually an age -- 33 years old. Many years ago, Stan Musial set a baseball player's prime from age 28 to 32. And even though this isn't 100 percent true*, there is truth in it. For many good-to-great players, 33 is the age when they begin to grow old. Maybe the bat slows a touch. Maybe nagging injuries nag more. Maybe the legs lose a little bit of their spring. Maybe the shoulder aches when they try to throw home.

*Bill famously debunked that prime years ago; he showed that a player's prime is quite a bit younger than that -- roughly from age 26 to 30. He says the numbers has moved some through the years, but the descent certainly begins before 32.

Whatever changes, 33 is an age when many players find that they can no longer do the things they once did. Right off, we should say: This isn't true of all players and not even most players (and we are talking every-day players here, not pitchers). Bill figures that about 70 percent of players perform about the same at age 33 as they did at age 32.

But, he also figures that more players -- and especially more GREAT players -- find 33 to be their most punishing season, the year that long fly balls stop leaving the park, the year that groundballs stop rolling through the infield, the year the bat feels heavy in July and August.

This is true this year, just like it is true every year: Alex Rodriguez, of course, is 33 years old and he in struggling in many ways. David Ortiz is 33 years old and he is struggling in just about every way (though he has been coming on the last couple of weeks). Alfonso Soriano, Placido Polanco, Edgar Renteria and Eric Byrnes are all 33 years old and all are having difficult years for one reason or another. Lance Berkman's batting average is way down. Carlos Guillen has been hurt all year. And so on.

Again, this isn't universal. Torii Hunter is 33 and he's off to the best start of his career. Russell Branyan is finally getting a chance to play in Seattle and at 33 he's been phenomenal. Bodies do age differently. And we are not even going to get into the whole discussion of performance enhancers ...

The point here is only that if you look throughout baseball history, 33 does seem to be the tough year, the one that players have to overcome.

* * *

Joe: Let's start with Royals outfielder Jose Guillen. I've spent much of this year watching him; Guillen has never been a GREAT player, but he has been a good player, in large part I think because of an unusually quick bat. In 2007 he hit .290/.353/.460. In 2008 he had a mostly lousy year, but he had about a five- or six-week stretch where he hit the ball about as hard as anyone I've ever seen -- he hit .390 and slugged .662 from May 7 through June 17, and many of his outs were smashes.

Well, he's 33 years old this year, and he seems in better shape, he seems more focused, he seems more determined than ever not to be a distraction for the team. But, again, he's 33. And you can see changes: His bat no longer seems as quick. This shows up in different ways ... he seems to be behind the fastball. He's seems to be taking more pitches. He seems to struggle against those third and fourth starters he once loved facing.

And it has been fascinating to watch -- I've never been a huge Jose Guillen fan by any means, but this year I have to admit that I've become a fan because it feels like I'm watching a player fighting with mortality. I see him, with men on base, bloop balls to right field rather than try to pull the long ball over the wall. I see him more willing to walk -- Guillen has been a famous hacker through the years, walking once every 21 or so plate appearances. This year he has walked 21 times in 240 plate appearances, which isn't exactly Barry Bonds, but it seems to be a shift in the way he plays the game.

Guillen's descent as a player really began last year, but this year, at 33, you can see it so much more clearly -- he can barely move in the outfield, he can't pull the ball hard except when a pitcher hangs a breaking ball, and so on. He has always been what the scouts call a mistake hitter, but more and more he finds that he's missing mistakes. Every day you can see how hard he's trying to adjust, though, and it's affecting in a way -- watching a ballplayer try to fight against time.

Bill: Historically, hitters' bats die at age 33 ... not always, of course, but there is quite significantly more loss in batting ability at age 33 than at any other age. Let me give you a few for-instances from history ... and obviously, I'm just hitting a few highlights; there are many others involving players with less recognizable names.

Joe: This is off-topic -- and I know about 10 million books have been written on the subject -- but it's still astounds me that from 1951 through 1957, you had Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays all playing center field in New York City. And in those seven years:

• Mantle twice led the league in homers, won the Triple Crown, won two MVP awards, posted a 174 OPS+.

• Mays led the league in triples three times, homers once, stolen bases twice, batting average once, won an MVP award and played center field defense as well or better than it had ever been played before.

• Snider led the league in homers once, RBIs once and runs three times; should have won the MVP in 1955*; hit 257 homers in those seven years; and inspired a generation of fans in Brooklyn.

*Snider lost the MVP award to teammate Roy Campanella in 1955 by five points, but a writer had put Campanella in both the first slot and in the sixth slot on his ballot. (Some accounts have the writer putting Campy in the first and FIFTH spots, but it appears to be the sixth spot.) The writer was ill and could not clarify; had his ballot been thrown out, Snider would have won the award. Had Snider been given the sixth spot on that ballot, he would have shared the award with Campy.

Snider never hit with the same power after he moved out of the comfort of Brooklyn's Ebbett's Field, and he also faded quickly at age 33. And even though he put up comparable numbers to Mantle and Mays during those New York years, his late-career fade probably changed the perception about him. It took Snider 11 tries to get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Joe: Well, I knew Amos Otis had to be coming -- seeing as he's your favorite player and all. He's a good example, too. Right up until he turned 33, Otis was an outstanding player, a rare TRUE five-tool guy. Ten years, 1970-79 (and remember, this was a decade dominated by pitching), he hit .300 twice and 18-plus homers four times, stole 30 or more bases four times, drove in 90 runs three times, scored 90 runs three times, played Gold Glove center field and (people forget this) made the throw that led to Pete Rose's famous collision with Ray Fosse in the All-Star Game. At 33, after his superhuman reflexes became merely great, he never could quite adjust -- and he never got 500 at-bats in a season after 32.

Bill: A few of these players did come back and have very good seasons after age 33. I don't think anyone I've listed here got all the way back to where he had once been (after age 33), but some players (such as George Brett and Eddie Murray) did snap back and have some good years after age 33 -- as A-Rod may, or Ortiz, or Lance Berkman.

Continuing on with my list:

21) George Foster
1981, age 32: .295, 22 homers, 90 RBIs in a strike-shortened season of 108 games
1982, age 33: .247, 13 homers, 70 RBIs in a full season of 151 games

Joe: This amazes me... you know from 1983 to 1990, Alan Trammell put up a 124 OPS+. Over those same eight years, Cal Ripken Jr. put up an OPS+ of ... yes, 124. I personally believe Trammell is a Hall of Famer, but I don't think he will get elected and the reason seems to be that he never played a full season after age 32.

Bill: Maturity in a player is the development of talents; not the development of NEW talents, but the development of those talents that the player has always possessed.

Aging is a narrowing of talents, and the narrowing of talents begins long before the player reaches the major leagues. Players, as they age, don't run as well, don't throw as well. They continue to develop those talents that they have, but the range of talents continues to narrow. What I'm trying to get to ... I don't think that "maturing" as a player is one thing and "aging" is a different thing. I think it is one continuous process, that helps the player up to some point, and hurts him beyond that point.

Joe: You will hear players say, all the time, "I wish I knew then what I know now." There's no doubt that David Ortiz is a smarter hitter now than he ever was. No question that Alex Rodriguez knows more about how pitchers are trying to get him out now. No question that Lance Berkman knows more about the game than he did at 26 when he mashed 42 homers and drove in 128 runs.

That's the cruelty of 33 for so many players ... and every player eventually hits that age. The brain is sharper than ever, but the body can't quite get them there.

Bill: It's like baking bread, or cooking an omelet. The baking of the bread helps the bread up to a point, and then, if you leave the bread in the oven beyond that point, the same things continue to happen, only they don't HELP the bread any more; they begin to ruin the bread.

Re: Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

So does the decline continue after 32? Since they only give two years it's tough to see. I guess this is hitting Milton Bradley two years early

One way James used to express it was that for a player over the age of 32 the half life of his career was two years.

Take 16 players at the age of 32 and 8 of them will be active at the age of 34.
Of those 8, 4 will be playing at 36. 2 will be playing at 38 and one at 40.

It's meant as a rough guide not a hard and fast rule and it works pretty well.

"Even a bad day at the ballpark beats the snot out of most other good days. I'll take my scorecard and pencil and beer and hot dog and rage at the dips and cheer at the highs, but I'm not ever going to stop loving this game and this team and nobody will ever take that away from me." Roy Tucker October 2010

Re: Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

While an interesting article, this reeks of cherry picking stats. 33 players over 75 years of baseball have had a good year at 32 but bad year at 33. I would be more interesting to see an overall trend. If a player just had a bad year at 33 but rebounded. I would also want to see if it is changing at all in today's era with better training, nutrition, and medicine.

What will be interesting to watch is the dollar figures and years of contracts many players are getting at 33+ years of age in the post steroid era. Will we see top players at the age of 33 get a 5 year $100+ contract? Will advances in training make up for some of the gains lost by PED testing?

Re: Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

I believe a lot of guys quit taking steroids this season. Nearly all of those guys are suspected of PED use.

"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton

Re: Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

Does the 32-33 year also apply to pitchers or do they decline differently?

James is pretty clear that he believe pitchers model differently.

"Even a bad day at the ballpark beats the snot out of most other good days. I'll take my scorecard and pencil and beer and hot dog and rage at the dips and cheer at the highs, but I'm not ever going to stop loving this game and this team and nobody will ever take that away from me." Roy Tucker October 2010

Re: Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

Looking at specific cases, as this article does, sort of confuses the point. It's not that any given player is going to perform worse at age 33. Rather, it's that age 33 is the average point at which a player's decline accelerates. It's an average and it's completely logical.

As you age, your motor skills degrade -- this isn't rocket science. However, as players age, they also tend to develop other skills to compensate (patience, power). That late twenties period is the nexus of physical ability and developed skills. In the early 30's, there aren't many new tricks to learn and the physical decline starts to rear its head. Some guys are able to sustain their physical condition longer, be it through hard-work, pharmacology, or a combination of the two.

Other guys make huge strides in the skills which allows them to sustain a level of performance or even possible reach a new level. If you want to use guys to illustrate particular paths of aging, that's cool. But we shouldn't waste our time trying to generalize from a small sample of specific cases -- and you can be sure that James' contention is based on a lot more evidence than is contained in those illustrative examples.

Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.

Re: Talkin' about the age-33 falloff phenomenon, with Bill James

Originally Posted by RedsManRick

Looking at specific cases, as this article does, sort of confuses the point. It's not that any given player is going to perform worse at age 33. Rather, it's that age 33 is the average point at which a player's decline accelerates. It's an average and it's completely logical.

As you age, your motor skills degrade -- this isn't rocket science. However, as players age, they also tend to develop other skills to compensate (patience, power). That late twenties period is the nexus of physical ability and developed skills. In the early 30's, there aren't many new tricks to learn and the physical decline starts to rear its head. Some guys are able to sustain their physical condition longer, be it through hard-work, pharmacology, or a combination of the two.

Other guys make huge strides in the skills which allows them to sustain a level of performance or even possible reach a new level. If you want to use guys to illustrate particular paths of aging, that's cool. But we shouldn't waste our time trying to generalize from a small sample of specific cases -- and you can be sure that James' contention is based on a lot more evidence than is contained in those illustrative examples.

James has written about that. Speed is a young man's skill whereas the ability to work a count and patience at the plate often increases with age.

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